The lights are dimming on the set of Family Mattrs, but Jaleel White is charged up for the future

Final Exams are in progress at the University of California at Los Angeles, and the casualties are everywhere: sleep-deprived students drifting obviously through what's left of the afternoon, their backpacks hanging heavy on their shoulders, their faces frozen into vacant postexam stares. Jaleel White, having just finished his next-to-last final of his third year here, walks among them unnoticed, just another essay-question survivor looking for a place to collapse. "Italian 46", he says wearily when asked what final he had just taken. "A study of Italian cinema as it pertains to the social climates of the times."

And how did he do? "I don't know, man," he replies, finding a spot to sit down near the student union. "It's over. That's all that matters. It is over."

For White, so many things are. He is 21 now, ready and eager to put away childish things, including Urkel, the whiny-voiced, pratfall-prone TV character he created on Family Matters when he was only 12 years old. But after nine seasons of being America's best-known nerd, adored by viewers, especially young ones, and discouraged by some critics, especially stuffy ones, White has strapped on his freak-show eyeglasses, accordian and two-tone saddle shoes for the last time. Steve Urkel is no more. The geek is gone.

Unlike Seinfeld, Murphy Brown, or even Ellen, Family Matters, which dominated Friday night on ABC for eight seasons before making a disastrous move to CBS this year, leaves almost unnoticed, the final episodes unceremoniously relegated to the dregs of summer. (In the two-part series finale, originally intended to be just the final episodes of the season, Urkel is engaged to his longtime love, Laura Winslow, played by Kellie Wiliams, and then launched on the space shuttle. Zero-gravity wackiness ensues.)

Six months after the final show was filmed, White is ready to leave Urkel behind. In two years, he will have a degree in film and television, and he is close to finishing his first screenplay. He has long-term aspirations to direct and produce and isn't in any hurry to take on his next acting role. When he does, it won't necessarily be a comedy, and it definitely won't involve him hiking up his pants or his voice to prepubescent levels and falling over a coffee table. "If you ever see me doing that character again, put a bullet to my head and take me out of my misery," he says. "Call Dr. Kevorkian. Because I'm obviously trying to commit suicide and just don't know how to do it."

Don't misunderstand him. White is extremely proud of his years as Urkel and grateful for the attention and financial independence the character brought him. "To me, Urkel was wonderful," he says. "And I never tired of playing him. He defied stereotypes. He was an African-American who listens to Wayne Newton albums, enjoys wearing plaid and loves polkas. And he made people laugh just by walking into the room. How many African-American performers have a character like that who crossed all racial lines? I had Italian guys, Asian guys, a tough T-shirt-wearing barrio guy just last week on Melrose, all of them yelling, 'Hey, Urkel!' I loved that. That was my Emmy."

But White acknowledges that during the last few seasons, he felt he'd outgrown the character (and, in the case of Urkel's tight high-water pants, the costumes as well). And more imporant, he felt the show had stagnated. "After nine years, you just know what everybody's going to do. There's a point where 'Did I do that?' [Urkel's most recognizable catchphrase] starts to sound like 'Whatchu talking about, Willis?' The last year was really tough. Last year was the first time t really felt like work."

There had been friction on the set almost form the moment White arrived, 12 episodes into the first season. Family Matters, pre-Urkel, was a gentle, Cosby-like family comedy revolving around the Winslows, a middle-class African-American family in suburban Chicago. The ostensible stas, as Mr. and Mrs. Winslow, were Reginald VelJohnson, fresh off his scene-stealing appearance in Die Hard, and JoMarie Payton-Noble, whose character had been spun off from another ABC hit, Perfect Strangers (Payton-Noble abruptly left Family Matters this season with only five episodes left; she was replaced by Judyann Elder).

But when White appeared for his scene as Urkel, a nerd from next door with a crush on the Winslows' daughter, Laura, the studio audience went crazy, chanting the character's name. White was immediately signed as a regular, and in much the way Fonzie took over Happy Days, Urkel became the focal point of the show. Egos were bruised. Tantrums were thrown. But the Urkel-driven ratings success was undeniable, and everyone smiled through gritted teeth on the way to the bank. "Mostly I was just there having fun," White says now, trying to be diplomatic as possible. "Remember I'm just a 12-year-old kid. But there was a pecking order established before I came here. And people were fighting to hold their positions, which is natural."

"There were a lot of things I didn't understand," White says now. "I didn't know how much money I was making until I was 16. But I did understand slights and the way some people treated me. Still, nothing kept me from having a good time. That show was my playground. And I learned a lot doing it."

In some ways the price of being Urkel was that White, on-camera anyway, wasn't allowed to grow up. He couldn't have facial hair or even change his hairstyle. He couldn't lift weights, for fear it would affect his nerdish physique. And as he became more recognizable, he had to be more careful about who his friends were and what they might want from him. "I know that sounds hard," he says. "But it wasn't. Because I loved the job. Every Friday night, when we taped, I loved it. I lived for that night, I thrived on it."

His parents, Michael, a dentist, and Gail, who manages both her husband's practice and her son's career, did an amazing job of carving out a normal life for their only child. Even as his face was selling cereal (Urkel-Os), dolls, and trading cards, he was attending regular schools, playing basketball for South Pasadena High. It's part of the reason he decided to attend UCLA., living in a one-befroom off-campus apartment, hanging out with friends, playing hoops, studying in the library. "This is just about life experience," he says. "If you're going to be a writer, you gotta live life, right? So going to college is a big part of life. But when I started here, people would ask me all the time, 'What are you doing here?' As if I didn't have a right to be here, as if celebrities are only allowed to hang out with other celebrities. You have to fight that. You can't let people push you into a cage."

To a large extent, his successful bid for a normal life lies in the fact that in reality, White looks almost nothing like Urkel. He is low-key, confidant, athletic, the anithesis of nerdiness. Still, there are times when the caracter creeps into his life in unsettling ways. "The biggest thing is how your preestablished persona affects the way people react to you," he says. "Especially girls. I was out with this girl one time. I had been talking to her for a while, and I mean, I totally dug this girl. And then she says to me, 'Do the voice.' Ohhh, man. That's, like, heartbreaking."

So here he is, a fully licensed adult, without a girlfriend and, for the first time since he was in seventh grade, without a steady job. But the take-charge White is unlikely to follow in the troubled footsteps of other child stars. He has plans, lots of plans. "I want to prove I can be just as entertaining doing other things as I was doing Urkel," he says. "There was a time when everybody used to call Will Smith the Fresh Prince. But they don't anymore. Now they call him Will. I believe I can do anything I want if I put my mind to it. And that's what I want. I want people to know me by my own name.